In a rather uncharacteristic fashion, a Member of Parliament (MP) for the ruling NPP government has chastised his own government for what he termed “arbitrariness in the way certain things are done”. The MP, Hon G. Y. Amoah did not mince words in declaring openly to the amazement of colleague MPs, including Ministers of State that government’s disbursement of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) funds amounted to arbitrariness.

Hon Amoah said this when he took his turn to contribute to the motion to approve the Economic Policy of Government of Ghana for the 2003 financial year as subsequently revised for the rest of the year. The MP’s open and frank assessment momentarily jolted the Majority side whose gestures and expressions showed that they were indeed shocked at the statement of their colleague as they wondered what was going to follow.

“Mr Speaker, the distribution of HIPC resources by the Government is arbitrary” said the MP to the amazement of the NPP MPs present, who turned towards his direction. But Hon Amoah was not perturbed. Inspite of the verbal heckling that followed, he stood his ground and rather stated that “the HIPC Funds are meant to alleviate poverty, but Mr Speaker, with the distribution pattern, it appears the purpose will not be achieved”.

He noted that the distribution pattern did not take into consideration the incidence of poverty, which should have been the benchmark for distribution.

Hon Amoah mentioned for instance that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Tema Municipal Assembly and other Metropolitan areas received higher funds than other deprived areas. After his contribution, an uneasy calm descended on the House, until Hon Kan Dapaah intervened with a statement on the economy.